PBCT People's United Financial Inc

LPI Laredo Petroleum Inc

LOW Lowe's Companies Inc

LNG Cheniere Energy Inc

LNC Lincoln National Corp

LITE Lumentum Holdings Inc

Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. (SWM) is a diversified producer of engineered solutions and materials for a variety of industries. The Company has two operating product line segments: Engineered Papers, and Advanced Materials and Structures. As of December 31, 2016, the Company conducted business in over 90 countries and operate 18 production locations across the world, with facilities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Russia, Brazil, China and Poland. Through its Engineered Papers (EP) segment, the Company primarily serves the tobacco industry via the manufacture and sale of paper and reconstituted tobacco products. Through Advanced Materials & Structures (AMS) segment, the Company is a specialty producer of resin-based plastic netting through an extrusion process, as well as certain meltblown products, machined plastic core tubes, urethane films, and resin-based rolled products.

UPDATE: These stocks took the biggest hit after the Fed's interest-rate cut sent markets reeling

6:43 am ET March 4, 2020(MarketWatch)

Print

By Philip van Doorn, MarketWatch

Financial firms got hammered after the Fed's surprise rate decrease

Investors were disappointed with the Federal Reserve's surprise interest-rate cut Tuesday, reversing the previous day's massive rally to send U.S. stocks down sharply.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 786 points (or 2.9%) to close at 25,917.41. The S&P 500 Index fell 2.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fared worst of the three, sliding 3%.

To see the biggest losers in those three indexes, please see the tables below.

The Federal Open Market Committee didn't wait until its regular March 17-18 meeting to lower the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to a range of 1% to 1.25%. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said during a press conference that the Covid-19 strain of the coronavirus would "weigh on economic activity here and abroad for some time," but that the committee believed the action would "provide a meaningful boost to the economy."

After the rate cut, furious buying of long-term paper sent the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury down to 1.00%, while the yield on 3-month Treasury bills was only slightly lower, at 0.94%. (On March 2, those yields had been inverted, with the 10-year at 1.10% and the three-month yield at 1.13%.)

So the yield curve went from inverted to nearly flat, meaning fixed-income investors expect another rate cut or had expected Powell to take stronger action Tuesday.

President Trump was among those disappointed with the size of the rate cut:

The financial sector of the S&P 500 dropped 3.7% on Tuesday. The cut in short-term interest rates, along with the decline in long-term rates, means most banks will face further pressure to their net interest margins, or NIM.

The following comments from sell-side analysts were all made before the Fed announced its rate cut:

-- B. Riley analyst Steve Moss wrote in a report to clients that liability-sensitive banks, such as Bridgewater Bancshares (BWB), First Foundation (FFWM), HomeStreet (HMST) and New York Community (NYCB), "would benefit from rate cuts, though a 50-bp reduction would likely be necessary to drive NIM."

-- Jefferies analyst Ken Usdin wrote in a note that Citigroup's (C) earnings stream was "less impacted from lower U.S. interest rates than most other banks." He also said Citi's shares were compelling because they were priced below tangible book value. He rates Citi a "buy," along with KeyCorp (KEY), which he called "one of the better protected banks against the impact of lower interest rates due to foresight in its hedging strategies."

-- KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani wrote in a report that Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) have "limited sensitivity" to narrowing interest-rate spreads and "should benefit from easing concerns around the virus given exposure to discretionary and non-discretionary spending, ongoing secular growth dynamics, and cost flexibility to protect earning growth."

American Express (AXP) led the Dow lower Tuesday, with a 5% decline. The stock has now fallen 21% since the close Feb. 19, when the S&P 500 hit its most recent closing high. Restrictions on corporate travel have taken a toll on the company. But Sakhrani called American Express "less credit sensitive (80% revenue from spending vs. 20% from lending) than other consumer finance names" and wrote that it would benefit from the lower-interest-rate environment and had flexibility to cut costs.

Dow 30

All but one of the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down Tuesday:

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